Last night, I scored my favorite Play of the Game in Overwatch 2 yet. My team pushed the final point on Paraíso as I hovered out of sight as Pharah, low on health, ready to help turn the tide.
First, I landed a final blow on an enemy Pharah in mid-air, a revenge shot that put me two-and-one between me and her. I quickly rose above to help Orisa kill a baby D.Va who had just ejected from her mech. Mercy came in with the clutch heals, and I switched targets toward one of the meanest and bloodthirstiest Roadhogs in our play sessions yet. Hog was low on health, and I wanted revenge for all the incredible hooks he’s pulled on me since last week.
Sure enough, Roadhog hooked me right toward him. But Orisa came in with the last-minute ult, which left me faster with the draw. I unloaded a rocket into his chest and scored the third and final kill to earn me Play of the Game.
It was a hectic, adrenaline-packed moment, a bitterly fought and bitterly earned series of eliminations against a team playing at exactly our skill level. Yet it wasn’t the challenge that kept me so invested. I’ve played plenty of sweaty games before, and I’ll play plenty more tonight. No, it was the players that kept me interested. I five-stacked with a group of past and present Dot Esports journalists, and the enemies I rained death on from above were gaming journalists from other publications.
Last week, Blizzard opened up a special review period for games journalists to try out Overwatch 2 before it launches on Oct. 4. In a series of daily, time-limited play sessions, I’ve joined my coworkers and colleagues from across the industry for unranked matches. The intended goal is, clearly, to help us with reviews, news, and guide coverage by granting us hands-on time to try out the new changes coming to the first-person hero shooter.
But my favorite feature in Overwatch 2 is a complete accident: It’s our play sessions’ friendly community vibes, which serve as a necessary backdrop to these incredibly intense matchups.
The vibes are cozy, but the games are sweaty
It’s fun killing your colleagues. But it’s also fun to get killed by them. Match after match, I’ve come to recognize the same few names on the Overwatch 2 review period servers. We’ve earned each others’ admiration and respect, and we’ve picked our heroes carefully to outsmart and outmatch each other. An Ashe pick to counter my Pharah, a D.Va to counter his Roadhog, and so on and so forth. Eliminating these heroes, and being eliminated by them, is about more than just winning on Paraíso or Midtown. It’s about coming together and playing as a community, with shared experiences and history, even if briefly and recently created.
Anyone who has ever hung out at a Counter-Strike LAN party or Team Fortress 2 server knows that multiplayer is about more than just clutch plays and kills. Games provide a sense of connection, and competitively oriented FPS players have always cared about the bonds they forge. In the 2000s and early 2010s, before the dawn of matchmaking, FPS fans would join clans, pop into their favorite servers nightly, or hop on the same TeamSpeak and Ventrilo channels to shoot the shit.
That legacy has carried on today. When VALORANT first came out, I joined up with some games industry friends for impromptu in-house sessions on Discord. We mixed and matched our teams, balanced out for skill, and went up against each other night after night.
Each time we lined up, my competitive side came out. I wanted to get good. I wanted to make clutch plays. I wanted to prove myself to people that knew me. But most of all, I felt comfortable competing, because I knew my teammates treated me with respect, and my opponents did too. No one was going to take it out on me if they got tilted. It was a competitive space, but it was a respectful one. What happened in the game stayed in the game, and that made all those sweaty matches so fun.
It’s fun killing your colleagues. But it’s also fun to get killed by them.
That same feeling came back as I’ve played Overwatch 2. I’ve wanted to perform well with my games journalists friends, and I’ve wanted to show my colleagues that I can get the edge over them in the middle of the fray. But most of all, I’ve had fun because I’ve been surrounded by good people. I’ve felt a sense of community and connection, that my achievements are being recognized by my peers, just as I respect my colleagues’ impressive skills too. That environment convinced me on day one to keep logging on to Overwatch 2, day after day, eager for the next play session.
Blizzard just so happened to curate this by complete accident, and it serves as a testament to the polite and respectful professionals I get to share this industry with.
Overwatch 2 is fun, but it’s a game best enjoyed with people writing “GL HF <3” and “nice plays, Pharah” in chat. I’ll seek that out on launch, maybe even join some GAMURS-wide in-houses if we put them together. But I’ll miss landing all the sick Pharah plays in front of my coworkers and colleagues—and learning what heroes they can steamroll me with, too.
